Sufferings in Africa: The Astonishing Account of a New England Sea Captain Enslaved by North African Arabs FROM THE PUBLISHER
In this classic tale of adventure, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1915, was captured by a band of nomadic Arabs, and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survival and a quest for freedom that takes him across the Sahara desert.
This dramatic account of Captain Riley's trials and sufferings sold more than 1,000,000 copies in his day, and was even read by a young and impressionable Abraham Lincoln. The degradations of a slave existence and the courage to survive under the most harrowing conditions have rarely been recorded with such painful honesty.
Sufferings in Africa is a classic travel-adventure narrative, and a fascinating testament of white Americans enslaved abroad - during a time when slavery flourished through the United States. (51/2 X 81/4, 336 pages)
SYNOPSIS
Here is a new edition of a classic story of adventure and survival—reminiscent of The Long Walk and We Die Alone.
Shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1815, Captain James Riley and members of his crew were made slaves to a band of nomadic Arabs. This dramatic account of his trials and sufferings sold more than 1,000,000 copies in its day and counted Abraham Lincoln among its admirers.
The degradations of a slave existence and the courage to survive under the most harrowing conditions have rarely been recorded with such painful honesty. Riley and his crewmates are stipped naked and forced to ride camels across the Sahara Desert. With their skin roasting off their bodies from the sun, and their backsides and legs, rubbed bloody from riding bareback, they spend weeks on end. Sold from master to master and surviving on the barest supplies of food and water, the story of their survival and ransom is a startling story of endurance. As readable today as it was 150 years ago, this is book anyone with an interest in the African desert or adventure should read.
Sufferings in Africa is a great travel-adventure narrative. It's also full of irony, a story of white men being enslaved at a time when in the United States, white Americans were enslaving others.
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